


Feather Fall

by hyenateeth



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Family, Gen, Reunions, Transformation, Very slight body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-23 22:33:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12518056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyenateeth/pseuds/hyenateeth
Summary: Beatrice cuts away her feathers.





	Feather Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ViolentFlowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolentFlowers/gifts).



> This is an extra Trick or Treat fic, cause I was very inspired by your Beatrice-centric Over the Garden Wall prompts, particularly about the scissors.
> 
> Tagged as body horror to be safe but its very brief and relatively light and vague.

It was funny, Beatrice mused as she flapped away, far away from the funny boys she would probably never see again – Mama had had a pair of embroidery scissors just the same as these. 

Well, not just the same, or at least so she hoped. The fear that Adelaide had been lying to her about this too had been resting heavy in the back of her mind. Perhaps, these gold scissors really were like the ones her mother had used back in the day, snipping threads as she embroidered between chasing after children all day.

Beatrice wished she had paid more attention when Mama tried to teach her embroidery. She had always been a rambunctious child, with biting words and a quick temper, too impatient for needlework, no matter how relaxing her mother claimed it was, and…

And she missed her mother so much. She missed her whole family, but especially Mama, the way she would hold her, the way she would help her with her hair, the way she smiled when she scolded Beatrice for scowling. 

The last time she had seen her mother was the day she cursed them, and she had been mad for… well, she couldn’t remember why now. But she had been mad and frustrated and before she stormed out of their house she had screamed, “I hate this family!”

It wasn’t true. Of course it wasn’t true. But she had said it, and then had stormed out of her house, fuming, wanting to hit something, anything, and, well… 

Now she was like this. 

And she couldn’t go back until she had fixed it. Until she could fix everyone – until she could throw her arms around Mama and apologize, apologize for everything, for yelling, for lying, for running away, for cursing them, for all the people she hurt trying to fix it. 

So, magic scissors or not, she had to try. She had to at least try. 

…Which was easier said than done, she quickly realized, when she had no arms. It wasn’t so easy to use scissors on yourself as a bird. Perhaps she should have asked Wirt to help, but she knew as well as anyone he had to get home to his family, and besides, he was such a delicate boy he probably wouldn’t have the stomach. 

It was all up to Beatrice. She had to snip away her own wings.

So she stuck the scissors into the snow, blades up and slightly open, and after a long moment of hesitation, thrust her wing down.

It was hard to explain, what transformation was like. She had been transformed into a bluebird instantly, was merely normal one moment, and small the next – but also it had been more than that. She had suddenly been aware of how light her bones felt, of what it felt like to have feathers, and a beak, and everything else. Of how it felt to not be human.

Transforming back was not so easy. 

She started sawing her feathers off, ignoring the pain, and for a moment back she was afraid it wasn’t working, that Adelaide really had lied and- 

And then, as her feathers began littering the snow, she felt her body began to change. It was slow, torturous, as her body slowly began to grow, stretch, reform, like each individual feather that fell was another increment in her change. He bones grew solid, making her body feel heavy, and she kept sawing and sawing, feathers leaving behind human skin. 

It must look horrific, the way her skin stretched as it grew, feathers still poking out of her more and more human form. 

One wing down, and it wasn’t a wing anymore she realized, but an arm, with a hand and fingers and everything. She was nearly back to her original size too – and she felt wrong all over, trapped between states like this – too much bird and too much human. Still, she was emboldened, and picked up the little golden scissors with her new, or rather, old hand, and turned it on her other limb, snipping away at a fevered pace, and it hurt, like she was cutting away at her skin, but there was no blood, no wound, just her own, human skin underneath. 

It was like she cutting away a second skin she didn’t even know was there. 

And then, as the feathers on that wing fell away, it was as if the shift happened, like everything was snapping into focus, and she breathed in a gasp, through her mouth, not her beak, and she was human, completely, wholly, human. 

With hands which she had missed so much, she touched her the soft skin of her face, felt the fabric of the dress she had always loved wearing, ran her hands through her hair, carelessly mussing the style her Mama had helped her pin. 

She really was human again. 

And then, with the same suddenness she had become human, she crumpled, surrounded by blue feathers, body shaking with sobs of joy. She was human. She was human again, and soon her family would be too. 

“It will hurt a little,” she said, as if her family could already hear her, as if she was already with them. “But I can do it. I did it. I love you. I love you all so much.”  
She cried again when she found her family, all bluebirds, apologizing and apologizing. She clipped their wings, much faster than she had her own, and it wasn’t until they were all before her she could finally say, through her sobs.

“I love you all so much. I missed you all. I’m-I’m so sorry, its all my fault but I love you all-“

Her mother cut her off by pulling her into a warm, soft hug. And as the rest of her family gathered around her, for the first time in a while Beatrice felt completely human again. She felt safe again. She could come home again.

Her mother could finally hold her again.


End file.
